Dr Ivan D. Reid ) gurgled happily, sounding much
like they were saying :

let me go. I was quite relieved as I thought the inspector was
reasonable and understood my circumstances. I went to the tube
station and bought the day travel card (yes, including the zones
where I was on the bus), and soon forgot about the incident.

Something doesn't ring true. Any travelcard is valid on (almost)
any bus[1], so you need pay no extra for "zones on the bus".

IRTA having got the bus from (say) Zone 4 to a Zone 3 tube station and then
buying a travelcard including Zone 4.

Would a Z1-2-3 travelcard cover bus to Z4?

Adrian ) gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying :

Would a Z1-2-3 travelcard cover bus to Z4?

reads rest of thread
Well, I never.. Live and learn.

On 27 Oct 2005 16:46:38 -0700, "ribonucleotide"
wrote:

Yes, yes yes.. I hear what you are saying and agree in princeple. But
pleading guilty means accepting that I actaully intended to comit the
"crime" of avaiding the payment to TFL of £1,20! (although, I was
still going to buy a full day travel card, but that does not count as I
understand). I do not want to accept something I did not do. An
administrative charge, however, of whatever amount is a totally
different matter. I believe the inspector was inexperienced or
incompetent or deliberatly deceptive (now I am beginning to think he
was envious or what not). But he certainly did not take "all
reasonable steps". I am afraid, I will have to see him in court to
talk about it.


You not only intended to commit the "crime", you actually DID commit
it :-)

The time to negotiate a free ride was when you boarded the bus,
inconvenient though that may have been. Not when you saw an
inspector approaching.

YOU ARE NOT A VICTIM in this affair. The rules were inconvenient, so
you ignored them. Your cheapest option is to plead guilty and pay
up. If you go to court you will have to pay costs as well.

On 27 Oct 2005 17:12:29 -0700, "ribonucleotide"
wrote:

As far as I remember, the logic I had was
"I rather pay extra £10 penalty to TFL, than 50p to the local shop for
nothing". At the time, for me, the expected utility of the first
outcome seemed greater. So, when "caught", I was happy to pay the
£10, and I would have bought the travel card anyway. Unfortunately, I
find myself being suspected of trying to "play the system". Ok, I can
prove in court I did not. But I need to decide my response. I'll talk
to another solicotor tomorrow.

No. Your logic was "I'll gamble a sure 50p loss against a lower
chance of a £10 penalty". That was not your option to choose. You
weren't "caught" in cute inverted commas. You were caught, period.

Aren't all these solicitors getting rather expensive? They may offer
a cheap initial consultation, but if you fight the case they won't
work for free.

On Fri, 28 Oct 2005 09:25:06 +0100, "Harry Spencer"
wrote:

Now, year later I am receiving this fine of £100+ for a criminal
offence!

They could only manage that if you gave them your name and address.

Are you QUITE sure you didn't contrive to "lose" any letters on the
subject during that year?

On 28 Oct 2005 10:22:46 GMT, Adrian wrote:

IRTA having got the bus from (say) Zone 4 to a Zone 3 tube station and then
buying a travelcard including Zone 4.

Would a Z1-2-3 travelcard cover bus to Z4?

Yes. As long as you'd bought it BEFORE getting on the bus :-)

Colin wrote:
If you want the luxury of paying for a ticket with a credit card then you
have to go to a ticket shop and pay the extra 50p. This extra fee is common
for many small purchases (not just tickets) as retailers get charged a fee
by card issuers which means that it's uneconomic to sell to you unless you
recompense them.

Luxury? ;-) Rather a necessity in many sitations, for which the owner
pays extra. It is not true that the extra charges for credit card
payments are applied only by small retailers. IKEA and many others do
that as well in this country.

R

"Adrian" wrote in message
. 244.170...
Adrian ) gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying :

Would a Z1-2-3 travelcard cover bus to Z4?

reads rest of thread
Well, I never.. Live and learn.

I think it changed in 2003 when Oyster came out. Before then you did need
all the zones you travelled through. TfL do not go out of their way to make this
fact clear, possibly because of the potential for lost revenue from those who
do not know and continue to buy zones they don't need.

This means that a single zone travelcard is also a bus pass for *all zones* despite
being only marginally more expensive than a bus pass. Anyone who uses the
buses regularly and may on occasion use the tube would probably be better off
with the single zone travelcard rather than the bus pass.

From January the single zone travelcard is withdrawn but the difference in price
between a two zone weekly travelcard and the bus pass will still only be 50p.
i.e. 50p extra a week to able to use all tube, DLR and National Rail in zones 2
and 3 (or whatever two adjacent zones you choose other than zone 1)

On 27 Oct 2005 16:46:38 -0700, "ribonucleotide"
wrote:

Yes, yes yes.. I hear what you are saying and agree in princeple. But
pleading guilty means accepting that I actaully intended to comit the
"crime" of avaiding the payment to TFL of £1,20! (although, I was
still going to buy a full day travel card, but that does not count as I
understand). I do not want to accept something I did not do.

Except that you did, of course. The simple fact is that you did not
have a valid ticket when boarding the bus, and any subsequent
intention to buy a Travelcard does not miraculously validate your
previous journey. If you had got off the bus, walked into the Tube
station, bought your Travelcard, and then been approached by a bus
inpsector, saying, "It's OK, I've got a Travelcard now," wouldn't cut
any ice. After all, if you had paid cash on the bus or used a SAver,
you would not have got a refund on either when buying the Travelcard
later, would you?

An administrative charge, however, of whatever amount is a totally
different matter. I believe the inspector was inexperienced or
incompetent or deliberatly deceptive (now I am beginning to think he
was envious or what not).

"Envious" of what?!

But he certainly did not take "all reasonable steps". I am afraid,
I will have to see him in court to talk about it.

Sounds to me that you provided all the evidence for an open-and-shut
case without him even trying.

Also, I have read now elsewhere that he could only ask for my name and
address, if I refused to pay on the spot.

Effectively you did, as you had no means to pay, by your own
admission.

Btw, there is a similar case now that was highlighted on BBC when a
woman had an Oyster card that did not read properly on a bus. I guess
she also made a "fatal" mistake of agreeing to pay the penalty before
she was asked to.

No, she made the fatal mistake of not having enough Prepay on her
Oyster card, and then boarding despite the card reader on the bus not
giving her a green light and the driver not noticing it. She gambled
and lost. Just like you.
--
Nick Cooper

[Carefully remove the detonators from my e-mail address to reply!]

The London Underground at War, and in Films & TV:
http://www.nickcooper.org.uk/

In message , at 08:53:44 on Sat, 29
Oct 2005, Nick Cooper
remarked:
Btw, there is a similar case now that was highlighted on BBC when a
woman had an Oyster card that did not read properly on a bus. I guess
she also made a "fatal" mistake of agreeing to pay the penalty before
she was asked to.

No, she made the fatal mistake of not having enough Prepay on her
Oyster card, and then boarding despite the card reader on the bus not
giving her a green light and the driver not noticing it. She gambled
and lost. Just like you.

Or she might not have noticed the reader on the bus not giving her a
green light. Presumed innocent until the case has come to court, eh?
--
Roland Perry